how to identify if sudo is required using bash

[edwardsmarkf]

hello -

i have several centos-7 installations. on most of them, if i try doing "sudo su;", i get a nasty warning message. however, on those installations i can just do "su;" and log in as root. this is what happens when i use my play centos-7 on virtualbox.

however, when i try the same thing on my google-cloud centos-7 installation, i can indeed do sudo su; in addition to everything else that sudo allows me to do.

i am thinking the best way to determine the difference is something like this:

Code: Select all

if  [ '${$(groups)/sudo}' ] ;
then   SUDO='sudo' ; 
elif  [ '${$(whoami)/root' ] ;
       echo SUDO='nice';    ## 'nice' looks prettier than an empty string '' 
else
      echo 'you either need to be have sudo or be logged in as root!';
      exit;
fi;
 
##		initial installation:
${SUDO}  yum  -y  update;                 ## a good idea to start out with.

opinions?

[TrevorH]

Or just add yourself to group wheel everywhere and use sudo.

[edwardsmarkf]

hello trevor - i was trying to create something a little more "generic" that could determine if sudo is required or not.